Fireball caught on tape over Texas, Meteor and did it hit the ground??? Options

[Guest_Bobby_*]

A meteor caught on Tape over Texas on Sunday February 15, 2009
Military says not related to Satellite collision last week.
Any reports if this object made it to the ground???

I wonder how many times this happens over a year???

Here are the Links:

Houston Chronicle:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6264797.html

CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/15/texas.sky.debris/

[Rob Pinnegar]

I had an impressive fireball experience last August myself. I was in cottage country a couple hundred kilometres north of Toronto, and was pointing out the Milky Way to a couple of friends, when a very bright green fireball zipped right across the part of the sky I was pointing at. (Without missing a beat, my buddy Jack said "Do that again".)

Two days later, Jack dropped me off at the Toronto Airport so that I could meet up with an old friend from the planetary science department at University of Western Ontario. When I finally managed to find him, one of the first things he said was "Did you see the fireball?". It turned out that he was the guy in charge of determining whether a search for meteorites should be launched, and that Jack and I were the closest known witnesses. (I had planned to meet up with this guy BEFORE seeing the fireball. Talk about your mind numbing coincidences.)

Anyways, it turned out that the fireball had been caught on video, and had an estimated magnitude of -14. This surprised me, as I would have thought it was less bright than the full Moon, maybe magnitude -8 or -9.

[pjam]

Anyways, it turned out that the fireball had been caught on video, and had an estimated magnitude of -14. This surprised me, as I would have thought it was less bright than the full Moon, maybe magnitude -8 or -9.

Hallo Rob and all,
That was a nice fireball that you saw! It should be noted that our mag estimate is hampered by our cameras being rather far from the Muskoka region, so your estimate may be more correct.
Check out the U Western Ontario website of the Meteor Physics Group for recent major fireball events in southern Ontario:

http://aquarid.physics.uwo.ca/

The most recent is the Grimsby event from last Sept 25. We're still doing seaching for more fragments this spring. Updates will be posted on the site!
-pjam